I’m the chairman, president and chief executive officer of Eli Lilly and Company. I joined Lilly in 1979, as a senior organic chemist in process research and development. Before that, I received a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from Xavier University (Cincinnati,
Ohio) and subsequently studied organic chemistry as a National Science Foundation Fellow at Harvard University, where I received my master’s and doctorate degrees. I'm a member of the American Chemical Society and Business Roundtable, and I also serve on the board of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), as president of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA), and on the boards of United Way Worldwide, Xavier University (Cincinnati, Ohio), the Life Science Foundation, the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership, and Nike, Inc.

Election years create sharp partisan divides in Washington, but there is surprising agreement between our political parties on one way to get America’s economy moving again. Both sides agree that the U.S. must remain a leader in innovation.

Entrepreneurial creativity has always been an American advantage. We’ve thrived as a nation on the idea that ingenuity and hard work will be rewarded. The innovations that have flowed from our labs, universities, businesses, and workshops have transformed American life over the past two centuries and have helped create the world’s largest national economy.

The question is: how best to sustain America’s capacity for innovation in the face of accelerating global competition?

One channel we have to bolster our innovative sectors is through the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). This is a regional free trade agreement that’s been the subject of negotiations for several years – and talks will continue for some time – among nations on both sides of the Pacific Ocean, including the U.S., Australia, Chile, New Zealand, Singapore, and Vietnam.

Lowering barriers to trade among nations helps kick-start innovation by helping boost the investment required for new goods and services. It also broadens the reach for innovative products and services. Investors are more likely to risk ample capital in developing intellectual property – such as new medicines – if they know that the markets for the products that follow are large and welcoming.

It’s as simple as this: broadening the market for our innovative products, as a regional free trade agreement would do, will increase capital investments, spur R&D and create jobs. Consumers and patients alike have plenty to gain.

Speaking of jobs, trade accounts for nearly 40 million U.S. jobs – 19 million of them in innovative industries, where America has an edge that could grow even stronger. Our biopharmaceuticals industry alone supports some four million American jobs, including more than 650,000 positions in the industry itself. And today, innovative products and services account for 60 percent of the value of total U.S. exports.

Given the importance of both trade and strong intellectual property protection to the U.S. economy, it’s important to get the details of the TPP right – especially when it comes to innovative medicines.

Europe’s experience is instructive. Europe once led the world in biomedical innovation. But by the late 20th century, rewards for innovation dried up and the leadership torch was passed to America. Since then, our own ingenuity and creative enterprise – backed by strong intellectual property protection – has driven sustained investment in biomedical research and kept us in a position of global leadership in this important sector.

Today, the U.S. accounts for more than 80 percent of the world’s biotech R&D. Each year, we test more potential new medicines than the rest of the world combined. We are the undisputed leader in producing biomedical innovations that transform lives.

Maintaining that edge requires strong intellectual property protections. Cutting-edge biologic drugs – pharmaceutical products developed from living organisms – receive 12 years of data protection in the U.S., a provision enshrined in law by the Affordable Care Act.

This particular provision of the law received strong bipartisan support. Our leaders in Washington understood that tomorrow’s treatments and cures depend on the biopharmaceutical industry discovering and developing innovative medicines. These protections underscored the importance of intellectual property to American innovation and patient health, and its value to the economy.

Not every nation involved in the TPP negotiations is as firmly committed to strong intellectual property protections as we are. That’s why a 12-year data protection period that mirrors U.S. law is imperative for biopharmaceutical innovators to recoup steep investments. Furthermore, TPP will set the standard for countries such as China that are not part of the trade agreement, so America must stand firm: we cannot sacrifice the fundamental incentives that drive biomedical R&D investments.

Critics of strong intellectual property protections argue that they act as a barrier to accessing goods and services. But history has proven them wrong.

Consider our progress against HIV/AIDS. Strong intellectual property protections yielded enormous private sector investment that helped transform HIV/AIDS from a death sentence into a manageable condition in the U.S. And stronger IP protection is starting to have the same kind of effect in the developing world. Absent strong property rights, new breakthrough therapies may never have emerged at all, denying access for rich and poor alike.

The TPP can expand America’s capacity for innovation, help create jobs here at home, and extend the reach of life-saving medicines to patients everywhere. It will bolster our economy by deepening and strengthening America’s relationships with some of the fastest-growing economies in the world. As our leaders in Washington work through the negotiations, they must ensure that American innovations are secured by strong intellectual property protection.

John C. Lechleiter is chairman, president, and chief executive officer of Eli Lilly and Company.

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